


Not Quite Devoid Of Love

by LittleLinor



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: ABSOLUTELY NOT HEALTHY but somehow healthier than the alternative, Alternate Universe - Loveless Fusion, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 22:17:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLinor/pseuds/LittleLinor
Summary: A couple of drabbles focusing on 96 and Vector from my loveless AU





	1. Chapter 1

Vector’s ears had been small and soft and almost perpetually hidden by the mass of his hair, only the tip poking out, which was a shame because their movement, once you learned to pay attention, had been so expressive and showed you things about him he didn’t always want you to know.  
Ninety-six had liked them, thought their loss was a pity (they made him look cuter). Vector had been all too eager to get rid of them.

There’s a mad light in Vector’s eyes when they fuck, not that different from the one he has in battle, and the rougher Ninety-six gets, the brighter it shines when Vector opens them.  
You could take it as masochism, maybe, but Ninety-six knows him better than that. It’s in the smirk, the breathy laugh that comes out between cries: not simple sensual overwhelming but  _triumph_ , the knowing satisfaction of getting under Ninety-six’s skin. Power. It’s knowing that he can rile up Ninety-six enough to make him rough that makes him high, knowing that he has control, knowing that everything Ninety-six does as payback for his hold on him is only a reminder of the power he holds. To himself, and to Ninety-six too. Yeah, go on, fuck me harder; it won’t change who holds the leash.  
From anyone else, Ninety-six would have loathed it. From Vector, it’s almost cute.  
It’s a game both of them can play. He  _knows_  what Vector is doing, and that’s safe, in a way: better open, gloating manipulation than a subtle one. And it only shows him how  _desperately_  Vector needs that control, that he’s ready to surrender so much of himself for it.  
More importantly, maybe, it means Ninety-six doesn’t need to hide or explain why he doesn’t need anger or retribution to love making him bleed. Vector gives him all the excuses he needs.  
He’s the one who should be grateful, really.

And then there’s moments in which Vector  _baits_ , blatantly and aggressively, where the pain and degradation and rough treatment seem to be a  _solace_  instead of a willing price to pay.  
Ninety-six isn’t sure he likes those. He doesn’t like the sudden seriousness, the dark, sad crawling feelings barely hidden under Vector’s skin.  
He could use them, maybe. He can tell when Vector’s vulnerable, when his carefully constructed outside layer slips, and it’d be  _so easy_  to attack him when he’s like that, fuck with his mind like he does with his opponents, but there’s something about the desperation in him that puts Ninety-six on edge. He could break him. One way or another. Tear away what’s left of his strength and viciousness, or burn down the last scraps of beautiful vulnerability (and what little leverage he has on him with the same stone).  
Either way, the result would be someone he really doesn’t want to be paired up with.  
He knows what Vector is doing. He’s being used, more than usual, even, his roughness and possessiveness and cruel words, his asshole attitude the air used to stoke the embers of Vector’s spite. He’s the one Vector goes to when he feels almost human, to remind himself life is shit and he can’t trust anyone and turn him back into a cutting, laughing mess. He’s the one Vector goes to when he forgets to hate enough to start to hurt.  
It’s in those moments that he actually gets vicious, that the anger actually seeps into his skin and clouds his actions. It makes him want to lock him down, make him gasp, make him bleed, make him  _cry_ , make him let go and lose his grip on that skin he’s fighting so hard for and using Ninety-six to build. He wants to break it all and see what’s underneath, the darkness and vulnerability, see what’s there that Vector tries so hard to hide that he’d make  _him_  pay the price for it.  
It’s only fucking fair, for letting him.

Ninety-six doesn’t like being used. But he likes–  
The cutting wit, the easy jokes, the way Vector  _gets_  his cynical, destructive sense of humour that Astral understands but refuses to condone and most people don’t understand at all.  
The fighting, the implicit trust, the way Vector lets him know he would never trust him not to get him hurt (he knows he will) but that he lets it happen because he trusts him to  _win_.  
The moments, rare and transient, when Vector sinks deep enough into pleasure or pain that the cutting facade drops without him noticing, when he forgets himself enough to  _let go_ , to cry or hide his face in Ninety-six’s shoulder to catch his breath.

If he has to be bound to someone else for god knows how long, he could do worse than this vicious trainwreck of a redhead.  
At least Vector keeps him  _engaged_ , and that’s more than he can say of almost everyone else.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy. Big warnings for this chapter bc it’s basically just “96 vowed to make Vector break and finally allow himself to cry” and involves undernegotiated kink and someone getting deliberately triggered. With good intentions but. Still.

He has no idea, as the sobbing finally recedes enough that he can fucking  _breathe_ , exactly when he ended up in Ninety-six‘s arms.  
He’d been pressed face down into the floor when he started crying, that much he remembers, the hand in his hair pulling and the blade at his neck pressing against his skin and Ninety-six‘s voice in his ear hissing that he should just give him what he deserves for lying, should just  _tell_  everyone what he’s really like, what he thinks of when he’s alone. He remembers thinking that Ninety-six should just kill him instead, and then that this was the reason he was so mad to begin with, and for the first time in years he’d felt so  _lost_ , helpless, no escape route left because now he can’t even  _die_ –  
And he’d broken, he realises now, started sobbing and keening and crying out “no"s that hadn’t been begging so much as a desperate admittance, and the next thing he knew, his  _fucking_  body had betrayed him enough that he was curled up near-fetal against Ninety-six‘s chest, face pressed into his shoulder. Let himself be  _held_. If his arms had been free, he probably would’ve been clinging.  
The idiot’s nuzzling his hair.  
He starts laughing, almost as hysterical as the crying had been, at the absurdity of it all. Ninety-six reaching down and pulling him up into his arms. Ninety-six cradling him like a fucking baby. Being gentle with him–what the hell gives? He’s never asked for this.  
And yet this mad, desperate, broken laughter feels like relief.  
He’s crying again by the time his breathing starts evening out. Just tear after tear rising in his eyes like a continuous stream, breaking and running every time he blinks. Everything hurts, more than it ever does during battles, more than it usually does after Ninety-six is done with him. Almost the same kind of hurt as when he’d been a kid–but deeper, almost cuddly with  _how much_  there is. The strain in his muscles and joints from his arms being tied back, pulled up so high he’d cried out when Ninety-six twisted them there. Bruises on his face, neck, chest, from being shoved against the floor. His hip–oh fuck, that’s probably going to scar; who let that ass around a candle anyway? Rope burn on his arms, wrists, ankles. Soreness in his neck and stomach from straining his muscles to keep uncomfortable positions. A shallow cut on his cheek. His neck–  
His neck is fine, as far as the skin is concerned anyway. No sign of the sting that would betray a cut, especially with the sweat and tears running on it.  
That knife had been  _blunt_.  
Ninety-six is a  _fucking asshole_.  
He tells him so, hissing the insult into his neck, and Ninety-six just chuckles and tightens his arms.  
“Look who’s talking.”  
He snorts, trying to shift out of Ninety-six‘s hold. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work.  
“I’ll untie you.”  
“What!?”  
Ninety-six‘s hand moves to his hair and grips.  
“Do you  _really_  want to keep going?”  
He stops moving, takes in how weirdly, deeply  _tired_  he is, like he suddenly tried to live his entire life without sleeping once.  
“… no.”  
“Thought so. Don’t move.”  
He stays silent as Ninety-six reaches for the knots at his back, trying to make sense of the whole situation.  
Ninety-six didn’t even fuck him. Ninety-six hasn’t even  _touched_  him, not in that way anyway.  
This is the weirdest fucking day of his life.  
Next to his ear, Ninety-six swears.  
“Oh fuck it.”  
He stretches and reaches to the side, and before he can register the cold metal against his skin, the ropes are falling, and his arms with it.  
(Scissors, this time. He’s pretty good at recognising the sound of those)

Having his arms free somehow feels even more helpless. He has to figure out what to do with them now, and there’s only so long he can rub at his wrists.  
The tears have stopped, but the sobbing’s coiling in his chest, like a spring that just won’t stop pressing now it’s been released even once, and it makes him  _sick_. He doesn’t want this.  
With a snarl, he pushes it down, digging his own nails into the already raw skin of his wrists, but Ninety-six‘s hand shoots out to stop him, pulling his hand away.  
“Don’t.”  
“Let me  _go_.”  
“No. I’m not letting anyone hurt you, and that includes  _you_.” He yanks him against his chest again, and he’s too tired to resist, too dazed by how alien everything is to  _think_  to resist until Ninety-six already has one arm around his waist and a hand buried into his hair. “That’s  _my_  job, not anyone elses,” he hisses, digging nails into his scalp.  
And he’s laughing again, laughing and crying like something’s broken, and actually clinging this time, hands curled into Ninety-six‘s shirt.  
“I fucking hate you,” he gasps against his shoulder.  
“Liar,” Ninety-six murmurs against his hair, and the warmth Ninety-six‘s hand stroking his neck sends through his entire body makes him shudder.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was written for the prompt "Things you said at 1am"

“If you ever get tired of putting up with all this shit, we could totally leave, you know.”  
Vector snorts.  
“If I got tired of putting up with anything, you’re the first thing I’d leave behind.”  
“Rude.” He drapes himself over Vector’s stomach like a spoiled cat, propping his elbow on his chest and his head on his hand. “I mean it, though. This place is shit.”  
“Why’re you still here then?”  
He shrugs.  
“It’s not like I’ve ever known anything else. And besides, now there’s finally interesting stuff happening. You. Astral being less of a robot.” He grins. “But if _you_ get tired of the place, we can totally elope.”  
Vector groans.  
“No, think about it! Word duels aren’t the only thing I’m good at. We can just run away.” He traces fingers along Vector’s collarbone—too sharp with the thinness of stress, but 96 loves him that way. “Or not just run away. Go out with a bang. Leave a trail of fire in our wake.” He presses closer, breathless at the thought. “ _Think about it_. We take down this fucking school and its shitty excuses for teachers, make them feel everything they ever put us through. Slit their throats, make them bleed out. And then,” he grins, “we keep going. Hunt down every person who ever hurt you.”  
“… you’re serious about this,” Vector finally says, wonder slipping breath into his voice.  
“Of course. I’m always serious when it comes to you, _Veccy_.” Vector cringes at the nickname, but 96 continues. “And besides. Why would I bother talking about it if I wasn’t ready to do it.”  
“And after that, what? Think they’ll let us just stroll off into the sunset?”  
“I’m the second best actor in the world, and that’s only because you’re the best. We sneak out. Either they kill us, or we make it out of the country, hide for a bit, and show up with new identities in like,” he punctuates with a vague hand gesture, “France or something. See it like this, it’ll be a blast either way.”  
“Literally,” Vector snarks, but he keeps silent after that, letting 96 nibble bruises into his collarbone.  
“Think about it,” 96 finally whispers after a few minutes of silence.  
“… I’ll think about it. Maybe.” He sighs. “But for now, I kind of like staying alive.”  
96 looks up from his neck to peer at him, and Vector thinks he almost looks proud.


End file.
